Open spaces make strong recovery, but popular venues still affected

By Charlie Brennan

Staff Writer

Posted:
09/03/2016 12:31:29 PM MDT

Updated:
09/03/2016 01:51:14 PM MDT

Boulder County Parks and Open Space technicians Radford DuBois, right, and Chase Stewart compact soil on the Heatherwood-Walden Link trail at the Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat area in Boulder County on Tuesday. For more photos of the post-flood trail work, visit dailycamera.com. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

John Barr was just wrapping up the latest of his "hundreds" of trips made to the Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat in central Boulder County since the devastating flood that struck the Front Range three years ago this week.

He photographs butterflies and dragonflies, and said that since September 2013, his photo safaris have been particularly satisfying.

"There's additional species I've never seen here before, and that's pretty cool," said Barr, a Gunbarrel resident.

There have been horned clubtail dragonflies. The miniscule pygmy blue butterfly has been spotted, too.

He'd never seen either one at Walden Ponds before the flood.

Brian Barlow looks for birds on the Walden Pond Trail at the Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat area in Boulder County on Tuesday. Last week saw the completion of restoration work at Walden Ponds necessitated by two major breaches during the 2013 flood. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

"I have no idea how they would have ended up here. Maybe they were washed out of the foothills," Barr speculated. "Is it coincidence or correlation? I don't know."

Barr has not been back yet, nor has anyone else, to another favorite spot of many naturalists in Boulder County — the Anne U. White Trail that snakes for 1.6 miles up the well-shaded and sheltered Fourmile Creek Canyon, which was hammered in the historic late-summer storm.

It remains closed to this day.

Another Walden Ponds visitor, Richard Crandall, of Boulder, said that during a visit to a friend's place in Pine Brook Hills, he and his friend had "bushwhacked" their way down to the Anne U. White Trail.

Anne U. White was an accomplished woman in her own right, having served as co-editor of the Natural Hazards Observer in its first two years, and also having helped shape what would become the Boulder County open space program.

"That just got destroyed. That was one of my favorite places to see butterflies," Barr said.

Vivienne Jannatpour, spokeswoman for the county Parks & Open Space Department, said the ongoing loss of the Anne U. White Trail to Boulder County's sizable community of outdoors enthusiasts has been a tough pill to swallow.

"It definitely has been," she said. "We have a lot of people asking about it. Traditionally, it has been very much of a neighborhood trail. There is not a lot of parking there, so that's been one of its limitations. But we have received a lot of questions about it. They can't wait for it to be opened again."

She could provide no timetable for when that might be possible, however. One of its most attractive features, its multiple crossings and re-crossings of Four Mile Creek, is also one of the barriers to a quick fix.

"That trail has always been prone to flooding," Jannatpour said. "Ever since the Fourmile Fire, every time there are thunderstorms, it becomes part of the stream. That's the biggest challenge to getting it open again. We can't work, when it's raining. Whenever that starts flowing, the work stops."

Pella Crossing progressing

It's a happier story at Walden Ponds, where the completion of restoration work necessitated by two major breaches by the flood were celebrated Wednesday.

Richard Mannion and his son Sebastian, 5, visiting the U.S. from England, go over and under a barrier fence at Boulder Falls in Boulder Canyon in April. The popular hiking destination remains closed due to trail damage from the 2013 flood, and won't re-open before next year, city officials said. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

"They've built passageways, where if a flood were to happen again, the water could just flow through without destroying the trails," Jannatpour said.

But the work there isn't finished. The Heatherwood Trailhead and a section of the Heatherwood-Walden Link were closed several days at the end of August for bank stabilization work.

Pella Crossing west of Longmont is another spot on the county map where, even as the flood recedes further into residents' memories, the work to bounce back is far from over.

County commissioners last December approved $3.5 million for repairs and improvements to the popular area on either side of North 75th Street south of Hygiene Road that took the brunt of a surging St. Vrain River.

In total, project costs are estimated at $3.2 million. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state have agreed to reimburse the county for 87.5 percent of eligible costs since the disaster. Plans include construction of a new 343-square-foot bathroom to replace the one that was destroyed, plus reconstruction of a trailhead and about 3.6 miles of trails winding around five of the area's eight ponds.

Improvements funded by FEMA's Hazard Mitigation program include emergency pond spillways designed to reduce the potential for breaching if flooding occurs on the property in the future.

"The preliminary construction schedule we received from the contractor suggests we will be able to re-open Pella Crossing in the spring," Jannatpour said. "Of course, this is dependent on good weather and no unforeseen circumstances. Restoration and reseeding are scheduled for February and March."

Perhaps one of the most visible legacies of flood damage to Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks properties, by virtue of its high visibility, is the ongoing closure of Boulder Falls, a view miles west of the city on the north side of Colo. 119 in Boulder Canyon.

"We recognize this has been a lengthy closure, but we need to reduce the risk to visitors to the extent that we can before we reopen the (Boulder Falls) trail," said Phillip Yates, spokesman for the city's open space department.

Work to still be done there includes widening and flattening the trail tread, installing a handrail, and installations of gabions to mitigate potential rockfall.

The city has been prioritizing projects that are reimbursable by FEMA, and Boulder Falls is not one of them.

A good 'cleansing'

Boulder's Open Space & Mountain Parks will begin or complete at least 18 flood-recovery trail projects by the end of 2016. Projects that will start this fall include repairs to the Chautauqua Trail, the NCAR-Bear Canyon Trail and a Mesa Trail section south of NCAR.

City officials hope to complete major rebuilding projects that are FEMA-reimbursable — such as the rebuilding of the NCAR-Bear Canyon, Mesa and Chautauqua trails — by September 2017.

Efforts will be made to minimize temporary closures along the NCAR-Bear Canyon and Mesa Trails while work is ongoing, Yates said, but some will be inevitable.

Yates applauded the public's patience, and voiced gratitude for the fact that since the flood, 1,380 volunteers had provided more than 7,000 hours of service in helping to repair Boulder's open space amenities and make them accessible once again.

"We have certainly been incredibly awed by the assistance of our community, to help us rebuild trails, rebuild ecosystems and repair our agricultural infrastructure," Yates said.

FEMA and state reimbursement to Boulder's open space department for flood repairs since the storm should total $1 million by the end of this year. The city expects to receive another $4.5 million by the end of 2018.

But the changes, three years later, can be measured by more than just dollars, cents and fresh infrastructure.

At Walden Ponds, Barr, the nature photographer, was choosing to focus during his recent visit on the positive changes wrought to the landscape by the storm that raged for a week with, in some locations, the intensity of a 1,000-year event.

"A good flushing is always healthy for our rivers and ponds," he reasoned, as he stowed away his camera gear. "That's a good thing. It's cleansing."

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